Nick Kern knows plenty of criminals who have committed felonies, yet managed to avoid prison. Police say one such man, Christopher Benter, smashed into the car Kern's wife, Sarah, was driving in Addyston. "It's hard to think that we're lucky to be in this situation, but in reality we really are," Nick Kern said. Kern, who works as a Hamilton County probation officer, is lucky because his wife wasn't killed when Benter's pickup truck crossed the center line of U.S. 50 and hit her head-on. Nick is thankful the crash happened after his wife had dropped their 1-year-old daughter off with their babysitter. At the time, detectives investigating the collision said drugs were likely involved. No charges have been filed because investigators are waiting for lab results. "You hope that it's a completely unavoidable accident," Kern said. "That it was bad weather and something happened and everyone's lucky, you know? But you hear stories and rumors." There's also Chris Benter's past. Five years ago, he pleaded guilty to having a loaded handgun in his car illegally. Police said he was high on marijuana at the time. In 2014, Benter pleaded guilty to heroin possession. Because he was convicted of low-level felonies, Benter was sentenced to community control. "In my mind, it's just another word for probation," Cincinnati Fraternal Order of Police President, Dan Hils said. "It's another word for not incarcerating somebody." The practice of sentencing felons to community control instead of prison is under more and more scrutiny, especially in Greater Cincinnati, a region caught in the grip of a deadly heroin epidemic. Because he works with convicts, Nick Kern tries to take the long view. "It gives me a different perspective on some things," Kern said. "There's a lot to it, and it's a lot more complicated than what anybody, for lack of a better term, any civilian who's not in that realm, would understand. There's a lot of forces behind what happens. And judges can only do what they're allowed to do." As a result of statewide sentencing reforms, Ohio judges are discouraged from sending low-level, nonviolent felons to state penitentiaries. "We're talking about nonviolent felons, maybe the people that were sold the drugs," Ohio Gov. John Kasich said. "We can't keep building more prisons and locking more people up." But Hils said what the governor's talking about and what's happening on the ground in and around Cincinnati are two different things. "You remember, California used to have the thing, three strikes and you're out?" Hils asked. "Well, right now in Ohio it's, like, eight, nine strikes and you're still in." Robert Easton may be a case in point. Last year, police charged Easton, a convicted sex offender, with dealing heroin and fentanyl. He pleaded guilty to aggravated drug trafficking, a fourth-degree felony. A judge sentenced Easton to community control, even though just two weeks ago Gov. Kasich was talking tough about going after dealers. "If you're a heroin trafficker, we don't expect you to be kept locally," Kasich said. "In fact, we'll lock you up and we'll make you stay there for a long time. ... As far as I'm concerned, we're going to lock them up and throw away the key." Easton ended up under arrest again in January, charged with 23 new counts, ranging from heroin trafficking to gun charges. His case is the kind that makes Hils angry. "We have people dying on the streets because of the fact that right now the crime and punishment system is not working," Hils said. He talked about an incident in March that nearly claimed the life of one of his fellow police officers. Police body cameras captured the moment Damion McRae shot Officer Kenneth Grubbs outside an apartment in Walnut Hills. McRae was on the streets despite pleading guilty to three counts of drug trafficking, including heroin, last fall. He faced four years in prison. But once again, the nonviolent, low-level felonies meant McRae received community control. "There's nothing nonviolent about heroin," Hils said. "There's nothing nonviolent about the heroin trade. The people who deal heroin know that they're dealing death. They're not that naive. ... Heroin's killing people. ... We all talk about it. We put it out there, call it a war on drugs. But what's happening? People get community control for dealing poison. That ain't a war on drugs. That's a bunch of lip service." When asked about drug dealers who manage to avoid time behind bars, Kasich acknowledged he's had conversations recently with state police officers who are concerned about drug traffickers being released on their own recognizance. "If we've got examples of these people coming in to the system and moving out and being back on the streets, selling this poison to anybody, including our children, it's got to change," Kasich said. "We will change it, believe me." More than one month ago, WLWT investigator Todd Dykes filed a records request with Hamilton County court officials to find out how many drug traffickers are sentenced to community control. But because of the way the county stores its court data, Dykes' request is still a couple weeks away from being completed. The fact that the data is not easily accessible may make it hard for officials to spot trends some consider troubling.